According to Visual Capitalist, "It takes an estimated 1,449 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy to mine a single bitcoin. That’s the same amount of energy an average U.S. household consumes in approximately 13 years." That's a lot of power, and with the increased interest in electric vehicles, electric bikes, and other household appliances, the electricity grid is taking a major hit. While the recent push for reusable energy has helped increase the electricity grid's capacity, the power needed for databases to mine Bitcoin is not enough.
Enter Nodal Power, a revolutionary company that develops and operates landfill gas-powered plants. These power plants collect methane gas from organic material in landfills and turns it into energy that helps power Nodal data centers and, when needed, the local electrical grid. For a visualization on the process of converting methane gas, please refer to the illustration below.
Harvesting methane in landfills is nothing revolutionary. In fact, most large-sized landfills in the US have this technology already implemented, but what sets Nodal Power apart from other power plants is that this electricity is used to power databases that are constantly mining crypto. This crypto is then used to pay for the power plants operations, ultimately creating a self-sustaining process of harvesting methane and mining crypto. While mining crypto is a major aspect of Nodal Power's business model, crypto isn't the companies main goal. Nodal's main goal is to add energy to the electrical grid, and according to Matthew Jones, CTO and Co-Founder of Nodal Power, if every landfill in the state of Utah were to have these power plants, then methane would create enough power for 3.5 million households.
To watch the full interview, please follow the links below.
